Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Tuesday announced that he is committed to seeking the establishment of a "civil state" in Lebanon. 

"I hope our pains will become a motivation pushing us to turn into a civil state, in which competency would be the standard and the law would be the guarantee for equal rights," said Aoun in a speech at a Baabda lunch banquet thrown in the honor of visiting French President Emmanuel Macron. 

"To achieve this goal, I have committed myself to calling for a national dialogue so that we reach a formula that would be acceptable to everyone," the president added.

Macron said that he expected the government to start delivering on a roadmap of reforms within six to eight weeks. 

"There is no blank check," Macron told a news conference in the Lebanese capital. If reforms, including an audit of the central bank, were not being passed within that deadline, international aid would be withheld, he added. 

Macron was in Beirut for a second time since an August 4 explosion which killed more than 180 people, laid waste to entire city districts and fueled popular rage against the country's political elite. 

He attended muted celebrations marking the centenary of Greater Lebanon, shortly after political leaders settled on a new prime minister, Mustapha Adib, to form a cabinet and lead the country out of political turmoil and an economic crisis that was already crippling the country before the portside blast. 

"What all political parties without exception have committed to this evening right here, is that the formation of this government will not take more than 15 days," he said. 

Macron set himself an ambitious goal for his return visit: to push for deep change, but without being seen as meddling in the former French mandate. 

"This is the last chance for the Lebanese system," he warned earlier. 

"It's a risky bet I'm making, I am aware of it... I am putting the only thing I have on the table: my political capital," he told news website Politico. 

Macron spoke to the press after meeting top Lebanese politicians, while clashes erupted in central Beirut between security forces and protesters rejecting the new prime minister. 

One held a poster aloft urging Macron: "Do not cooperate with the corrupt and criminal." 

The French leader arrived Monday, just hours after Adib, a little-known 48-year-old academic and former ambassador to Germany, was designated to form a government. 

(With input from agencies)